The Furniture Awards returned at this year’s January Furniture Show, to single out the suppliers setting the pace in their respective fields. From local leaders to innovative importers, this year’s winners represent just what our industry is capable of …
A technical agency specialising in web-based business solutions, Iconography boasts a growing roster of satisfied customers, and its recent project for Haskins Furniture demonstrates just how much the operations behind furniture retail can be streamlined by embracing an IT system with the right partner.
With capabilities spanning ecommerce, operations, store and stock management, and a view on front-end performance as much as back-end efficiency, Iconography also shines for its excellent customer service and industry-specific expertise.
At the heart of its offer is OMNIS Retail, a cloud-based unified commerce platform which powers whole retail operations, online and in-store, with all the features, functions, information, insight, reporting and data a retailer needs at their fingertips in real time, states Iconography:
“OMNIS Retail provides a coherent platform for modern omnichannel retailing, and delivers ecommerce, EPoS, CRM and a suite of head office and retail operations management functionality – all running from one database.
“Our most recent OMNIS Retail launch was Haskins Furniture, who went live in November 2023. They had decided to move away from a disjointed, inefficient legacy furniture retail system that was made up of too many parts – a database built on outdated technologies, a system with limited development opportunity, poor support and an insecure WooCommerce website combined with a shaky integration. They were the perfect candidates for a real unified commerce solution.”
After meeting the retailer’s department heads, Iconography’s team developed a solution to suit. “It’s very important to us that our clients understand the system that they’re buying, and that retailers really understand exactly what we’re able to offer,” states Iconography, “and the system that Haskins Furniture put live is streamlining all aspects of their day-to-day furniture retailing.
“Everything stems from product catalogue creation and item maintenance in a single centralised database – OMNIS Retail then repurposes that information across multiple channels, providing both an EPoS and a tool for store staff to give potential customers information on products and product availability, lead times and location. In the back office, meanwhile, OMNIS Retail offers a unified order-processing workflow.
“The implementation of OMNIS Retail is all about working with furniture retailers to maximise their efficiency, adding automation and oversight to existing workflows, rather than forcing them to start from scratch. We have a truly impressive suite of tools available to our users, but perhaps the strongest is the ability to personalise the user .
“Unlike other software providers, we don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach – as every furniture retailer is different, we know that each system must be tailored to its user.”
Pictured: Iconography director Wayne Robbins with senior account managers Francesca Thompson and Georgia Caird
